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Odds & Ends: Tinsley, Durant, 76ers, Bogut

October 26 2013 at 10:58pm CDT By Chuck Myron

Only three players who remained unsigned this month started more games for their team last year than the 32 that Jamaal Tinsley started for the Jazz, who finally re-signed him to a minimum-salary contract this week. The point guard still didn’t get anxious as he stayed at home without a contract this fall.

“Not at all,” Tinsley said to Steve Luhm of The Salt Lake Tribune. “I’ve been through way tougher things in my life than this. I’m blessed to get the opportunity to play basketball. I’d do this for free. I’ve been running up and down the court the last four (or) five months without a job. … So it wasn’t frustrating.”

Thaddeus Young hopes he remains with the Sixers, the only NBA team he’s ever played for, but he understands the team is in flux and could trade him or teammates Evan Turner and Spencer Hawes this season, as Tom Moore of The Intelligencer observes. “There definitely is some talk,” Young said. “At the end of the day, it’s a business. If they see fit to trade one of us, two of us or all three of us, we have to pack up and go. It’s still a job. We have to remain calm and we can’t be mad.”

Whether or not Young stays, the Sixers roster will almost certainly change during the season, writes Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer. GM Sam Hinkie acknowledges that plenty of work remains to turn the team into an elite organization.

Kevin Pelton figures Andrew Bogut will be healthy for most of the three years of his extension, but he still thinks the Warriors absorb more financial risk than Bogut does, arguing in an Insider piece for ESPN.com that the team should have waited until he hit free agency to do a deal.

Pelton mentions the Mavericks as a potential suitor for Bogut had he become a free agent, and Warriors brass indeed perceived the Mavs as a threat, just as they saw the Bobcats as a rival for Stephen Curry, tweets Marcus Thompson II of the Bay Area News Group.